June 17, 2017

Peaceful path: It’s not that Gandhi never toyed with the idea of indulging in violence but then chose non-violence

This week I’ve been reading Rajmohan
Gandhi’s latest book Why Gandhi Still Matters (Aleph). Needless to say
that today, in these crisis-ridden times, Gandhi matters as never
before. And what touches is the simplicity with which he’d dealt with
his opponents. Nah, none of the killing or lynching sessions but sheer
sincerity and good sense. To quote him from this book, “Having flung
aside the sword, there is nothing but the cup of love which I can offer
to those who oppose me.” Mind you, it’s not that Gandhi never toyed with
the idea of indulging in violence but then chose non-violence; to quote him, “As a coward, which I was for years, I harboured violence. I began to prize non-violence
only when I began to shed cowardice…In spite of the negative particle
‘non’, nonviolence is no negative power. We are surrounded in life by
strife in bloodshed, life giving upon life. But it is not through strife
and violence but through non-violence
that a man can fulfil his destiny…We cannot win Swaraj for our
famishing millions, for our deaf and dumb, for our lame and crippled, by
the way of the sword. If the practice of seeking justice through
murders is established amongst us, we shall start murdering one another
for what we believe to be justice. In a land of crores of destitute and
crippled persons, this will be a terrifying situation.”

Gandhi chose superior ways and means to
reach out. In fact, this book is laced with Gandhi’s simple ‘connecting’
ways to take on the destructive forces. Nothing complicated. None of
those big-worded speeches or tamasha events. And as he’d traveled to
riot stricken locales, countering the communal strife, his focus was to
get the communities together. Right there, right in front of his eyes.
No, he didn’t believe in giving orders but travelling to the affected
communally stricken villages, camping there, meeting the various groups ,
un — moving till the tension fizzled out…And yes, at times he’d
traveled bare foot, saying, “We don’t go to our temples, mosques or
churches with shoes on…we are treading on holy ground where people have
lost their loved ones.”

Gandhi is no longer around. What if
alive, he would have immediately taken a padyatra to Uttar Pradesh’s
Saharanpur district, to reach out to the hundreds of the affected Dalit
families. He would have camped right there till the culprits were booked
and till some semblance of peace and security prevailed in the area. In
fact, he would have focused on the caste divides, killing and
destroying hundreds. As he’d often said, “If I have to be reborn, I
should be born an untouchable, so that I may share their sorrows,
sufferings and affronts leveled at them, in order that I may endeavor to
free myself and them from the miserable condition.” He had also
conveyed a warning of sorts to the caste Hindu, “the political part of
(the settlement)… occupies but a small space in the vast field of reform
that has to be tackled by caste Hindus in the coming days, namely the
complete removal of social and religious disabilities under which a
large part of the Hindu population has been groaning.”

Look around, today there are only a
handful who take the trouble of travelling to the varying locales and
indulging in that all powerful medium — connect with the people! In
fact, one such person is Professor VK Tripathi, who has been teaching
Physics at IIT, New Delhi. He and his band of academics have been
undertaking journeys to the varying communally charged locales. Right
from Assam to Gujarat to Uttar Pradesh and much beyond … Travelling by
train or bus, they live in the affected villages for days and not just
hold classes in the village schools and colleges but even form groups to
work on the core issue of communal harmony… I had first met Professor
Tripathi almost 15 years back; the sight seems still unmoving from my
psyche : on one end of the lawns of the sprawling IIT campus, he was
holding a discussion with his students and research scholars on the
turbulent happenings in the country and the world over and how to reach
out to the affected by non-violent ways and means. He sounded not just
focused but also determined to move beyond the boundaries of the IIT
campus. Setting up the Sadbhav Mission, he and his team of volunteers
visit hundreds of villages, stay put in village homes, reaching out to
the aggrieved. Many times, even interacting with the district level
officers to help in restoring tension.

Needless to add that persons like
Tripathi and his volunteers are a rarity in today’s India , where the
very thought of traveling in this heat and dust and drinking water from
taps or eating challah- baked rotis sounds scary! But, as his wife told
me that Tripathi does not believe in RO water and drinks from the
village taps and eats whatever is locally available. Today his best
friends reside in the villages of the country. We need this Sadbhav zeal
to spread out, before anarchy surcharges .Before civil strife gets
uglier, before communal wars play havoc not just in cities but also on
the various platforms and social sites. Wars and battles are already on,
on those sites!

In fact, this brings me to write that
all along one was under the impression that to be a so-called ‘good’
singer one has to be far beyond communal and vulgar-mouthing, but take
the case of singer Abhijeet Bhattacharya. His tweets seem laden with
crude comments. How can his voice take the strain of such venom within
him! But, of course, we are living in such harsh times where vulgarity
is becoming part the survival package. Where the heart and those
emotions seem to have taken a back seat; pushed in the background by the
severity of the daily dose of onslaughts.

Map of L K Advani's Rath Yatra of 1990

About Us / Disclaimer

This is a collaborative space run by an informal collective of people from across India and elsewhere. The blog was started many years ago under the aegis of South Asia Citizens Web. All web content placed here is done in public interest; it may be freely used by people for non commercial purposes. Please remember to give credit to original copyrighted sources and seek permission for further use.Disclaimer:Posting of content here does not constitute endorsement by the Communalism Watch Cooperative.